Advances in photovoltaic technology, which are used to make solar panels, have helped solar energy gain mass appeal among those wishing to reduce their carbon footprint and decrease their monthly energy costs. However, the panels are typically fabricated manually, which is a time-consuming and error-prone process that makes it costly to mass-produce reliable solar panels.
Conventional approaches for fabricating solar cells often require the entire fabrication process for a particular solar cell to be performed with minimal delays between process steps since even brief exposure to ambient air triggers degradation of solar cell components by oxidation. If such delays are unavoidable, solar cell components are typically placed on a tray and stored in a large storage container that must be purged of ambient air and filled with an inert gas such as nitrogen. Even this approach, however, can result in some degradation of solar cell components since purging a large storage container can be time-consuming and studies have shown that measurable degradation occurs within 6 minutes of exposure to ambient environment. In addition, since storage of solar cell components typically utilizes a high-grade of Nitrogen, such purging and filling of large storage containers can become cost prohibitive, thereby limiting the number of solar cells that can be efficiently transferred and stored without degradation occurring. These difficulties make large-scale production of solar cells challenging since large-scale production may require process steps to be performed at different times and/or locations necessitating delays between process steps. Therefore, it would be desirable to develop systems and methods that allow for transfer and/or storage of solar cell components quickly and efficiently while avoiding oxidation and degradation of solar cell components. It would be further desirable if such systems and methods allowed for transfer of large volumes of solar cells between locations and automation so as to facilitate large-scale fabrication of solar cells.